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Tampa Bay Times: Scientology group's flier causes stir at Memorial Day service
http://www.tampabay.com/news/scient...r-causes-stir-at-memorial-day-service/2181662
Excerpts:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/scient...r-causes-stir-at-memorial-day-service/2181662
Excerpts:
PALM HARBOR — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights presented itself as a group working to help veterans avoid suicide and asked to put inserts in the program for the annual Memorial Day service Monday at a local cemetery.
What the group didn't say was that it has ties to the Church of Scientology, and the fliers reflected the church's opposition to psychiatry by attacking mental health care for veterans and suggesting the federal government is responsible for "psychiatric drugging gone rampant."
The flier upset at least one guest and was inappropriate, said Keenan L. Knopke, the president of Curlew Hills Memory Gardens, the family-owned funeral home, crematory and cemetery at 1750 Curlew Road.
"It takes away from the event itself," Knopke said.
The Citizens Commission on Human Rights provided about 250 inserts, but didn't pay the funeral home anything, he said. About 500 people attended the event, Knopke said.
If he had known the group's background, Knopke said, he wouldn't have allowed the fliers in the program.
"It's become a political statement and viewpoint, and we try to keep our public events non-political in every way, shape and form," he said.
U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis' office contacted him to let him know the group would be reaching out to him, Knopke said. The Bilirakis staffer who contacted him didn't endorse the group, but Knopke said he assumed their materials were appropriate for the occasion since Bilirakis' office had become involved.
"Maybe I assumed some things," Knopke said.
Bilirakis' staff doesn't endorse groups. A veteran affairs liaison in the congressman's office just passed along to the funeral home that the group had asked about well-attended Memorial Day gatherings, said Elizabeth Hittos, a Bilirakis spokeswoman.
"It was certainly not an endorsement," Hittos said.